1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present general inventive concept relate to an image forming apparatus having an improved configuration for attachment/detachment of a developing device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Color image forming methods of color image forming apparatuses may be classified into a transfer drum method, an intermediate transfer method, an image-on-image method, and a tandem method.
In a transfer drum method, a transfer sheet is wound on a surface of a transfer drum, which is made of a dielectric film and is arranged to face a photoconductor, and an electro-photographic process including formation of an electrostatic latent image, developing, and transfer is repeated for each of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black, to cause different colors of toner images to overlap in sequence on the transfer sheet, whereby a full color image is obtained.
In an intermediate transfer method, different colors of toner images are sequentially transferred onto a drum or a belt, which is referred to as an intermediate transfer medium, rather than the transfer sheet used in the transfer drum method, to form a full color image, and then, the full color image is retransferred onto a transfer sheet.
In an image-on-image method, an electro-photographic process including formation of an electrostatic latent image, developing, and transfer is repeatedly performed on a photoconductor for each of yellow, magenta, cyan, and black, and the resulting full color image formed on the photoconductor is transferred to a transfer sheet.
In a tandem method, images formed by image forming units arranged in parallel are sequentially transferred to overlap one another on a single transfer sheet, so as to form a full color image on the transfer sheet carried by a transfer belt.
In particular, a tandem type color image forming apparatus may have numerous types of available transfer sheets and also, may rapidly form a high-quality full color image.